The Young Man and Journalism

by Chester Sanders Lord

No, newspaper articles, sparkling and spectacular as many of them are, must be recognized as ephemeral. The editor has no time for leisurely work. He rarely studies a single subject long enough or intensely enough to become profoundly authoritative on that subject. He goes on through life informing, elucidating, explaining, protesting, analyzing, until overtaken by the infirmities of years he passes from view. In a hazy sort of a way it is said of him that he was a great editor, but all that he wrote for his newspaper is forgotten. He leaves little for future generations to ponder over.

Alas! It is a sickening, saddening thought that the newspaper is for the moment only and that the editor who leaves behind him a lasting record of greatness has gained it through some other line of endeavor.

To the ambitious man the average newspaper salary means little. Any possible savings from it must be insufficient to make him especially prosperous. They do not insure against a pinch in old age or against misfortune. They do not permit of the accumulation of much property or capital. They furnish a feeble inspiration to the ambition that seeks the comfort of leisurely life, the stimulation of extended travel, or the luxury of intellectual repose and freedom from physical exertion that every one hopes may bless his declining years.

And if these conditions be true of metropolitan workers, how much the more must they befit the writers for newspapers in the smaller cities and villages. It is not the ideal of the American boy either in country or city to live forever in a rented house or on a small salary, or, indeed, to live the simple life. The small-city journalism offers little else than these if the young man cannot become a newspaper owner. To the man who owns his sheet the rewards are more abundant. But ownership involves the possession of capital and usually the young man just through with student life has no capital except his brains. In other callings the capital of brains commands success, notably in the law, in medicine, in engineering, in architecture, but in the newspaper business, while brains are absolutely essential they advance the young man only so far, give but feeble reward, unless reinforced with capital with which to buy a newspaper property. It surely is a discouraging feature of the calling that, however intellectual or learned a man may be, he rarely achieves more than moderate pecuniary success, as long as he remains an employee.

In the big cities the big properties have a money valuation measured by millions of dollars. They are owned generally by very rich men or families and ownership rarely changes. To possess one of them has been the ardent and unaccomplished ambition of thousands of men: capitalists, statesmen, reformers, philanthropists, cranks. The chance of the young journalist getting one is infinitesimal. And in the small city the price put on a newspaper that by chance happens to be for sale is far beyond its earning value. There seems to be some mysterious ingredient in newspaper properties that gives them a fictitious value in the mind of the owner. Whether it is prospective influence, or prospective prospects, or what, nobody is able to explain; but the sheet is always “worth much more than it is earning.”

It is a curious fact that, whereas a factory, or a store, or a farm, or a railroad that has not made a cent for five or six years, will sell for no more than its old junk represents, nevertheless a newspaper with the same poverty of profits commands a price based on a prodigality of profits. The very great success of some newspapers seems to have inspired the belief that any sheet may be made profitable if properly managed; but it should not be forgotten that business ability counts for quite as much as editorial excellence on the newspaper balance sheet. Indeed, it may count for more, for have we not seen excellently edited sheets fail utterly, and do we not know of others, utterly devoid of editorial worth, in which the joy bells of prosperity tinkle a cheerful chime?

Since then the savings from the salary of even the successful newspaper writer are insufficient for the accumulation of property or the establishment of any considerable prosperity, and since newspaper ownership involves the investment of capital and smart business ability as well, it follows that our young man must look beyond mere pecuniary gains for the rewards of journalism.

What then are some of the rewards? The editor may exercise his gifts of persuasion in unnumbered directions. The important activities of the world pass by him in daily review. His mental vision may survey the entire field of human thought, furnishing delightful subjects for consideration, for study, for exposition. In all modesty and without vainglory he may rejoice in the satisfaction of well directed influence; may find pleasure in the responsibility of influencing public opinion; may take pride in the endeavor to aid in the intellectual and moral uplift of his fellow-men. What greater reward hath man than this?

There are no problems of statecraft, science, society or religion, that he may not undertake. Everybody likes to tell his neighbor the latest news and gossip and especially likes to add what he thinks about them. The newspaper editor tells his information to thousands; and he finds additional satisfaction in telling it well. To take a hand in every political shindy is uproariously good fun; indeed, notwithstanding all its importance, its responsibilities, its dignities, there is more fun in the newspaper business than in any other occupation known to man.